Young man goes west to further his acting career

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Justin Betancourt (left)
and Jeffrey Guion perform. (Enoch Wu/Sentinel-Tribune)

Justin Betancourt has played kings and clowns. The Bowling Green actor has done musicals, Greek drama and
lots of Shakespeare.
He’s gone from being a 10-year-old student in a Horizon Youth Theatre class to teaching youth theater
classes and serving as assistant director for the troupe’s recent "Mulan."
Now he’s heading west to continue his theatrical career as part of an educational program based in St.
Paul, Minnesota.
Betancourt, the son of Sherry and Jorge Betancourt, loves being on stage, and he’s a familiar face on
local stages.
Few if any actors in town can claim to have appeared in productions by the Horizon Youth Theatre, the
Bowling Green High School drama club, the BGSU Department of Theatre, Beautiful Kids Independent
Shakespeare Company, Lionface Productions, BGSU’s Treehouse Troupe and the Black Swamp Players as well
as 3B Productions, which stages its shows in Maumee.
Betancourt, who graduated from BGSU in May, said all this activity stems from his desire to master his
craft.
When he was a freshman at BGSU he auditioned for "The Importance of Being Earnest," and was
pleased that he got a call back. "The amount of talent in the room just stunned me," he said.
He felt he couldn’t compete, but instead of getting discouraged he was determined to get better.
"Practice was the only way to get better, so I’d go to other troupes to get into shows."
So when Betancourt wasn’t cast in "The Importance of Being Earnest," he ended up in a musical
version of the Oscar Wilde classic "Ernest in Love," staged by the Black Swamp Players the
same fall.
A notice on a theater bulletin board led him to joining Beautiful Kids for a production of Shakespeare’s
"Twelfth Night."
He’s performed in several of the summer Shakespeare in the park shows, including earlier this month as
Guildenstern in "Hamlet."
For the Beautiful Kids the play’s the thing – instead of scenery, lighting and costumes, he said.
"We rely on the acting and the show itself."
While he’d done some Shakespeare in high school, his work with Beautiful Kids and later with Lionface
Productions, forces him and the actors to confront the Bard’s text.
"The biggest challenge is to take these big Shakespearean paragraphs and make it sound like you’re
actually just saying that to the person next to you."
Sometimes finding a motivation for a character inside "the poetic language no one ever uses"
can be difficult.
And instead of the two or three months other shows are in rehearsals, Beautiful Kids has about a month of
production before they take the stage in Needle Hall in Bowling Green City Park.
Betancourt said it’s worth it. "I haven’t had a Beautiful Kids show that wasn’t successful," he
said. "Everybody always seems to enjoy the shows. That’s what matters – you’re bringing Shakespeare
to Bowling Green."
Shakespeare played a part in sparking Betancourt’s own interest in performing.
When he would see his brother Joe on stage in high school productions, he wanted to be performing. That
was especially true when Joe Betancourt was in the slapstick "The Complete Works of William
Shakespeare (Abridged)."
"I liked the idea of comedy acting, of being up on stage and making people laugh, just being able to
do something you’d never have the chance to do in real life."
His mother had already picked up on this. "When I was a kid I was shy, but at home my mom realized I
always liked to be the center of attention and would be very dramatic."
So she enrolled him in Horizon Youth Theatre classes. When he was 14 he took part in his first show,
"Best Christmas Pageant Ever," then joined the drama club at Bowling Green High School.
His first role, in "the Visit," was inauspicious. "I was this guy who was just supposed to
stand there and look menacing."
Auditions at that point were hard. He would have his monologue memorized but freeze when it came to
perform it.
He worked to get over it. Eventually he was cast as Creon, the king "with huge monologues" in
Sophocles’ "Antigone."
Other favorite roles have been the comic blunderer Bottom in "A Midsummer Night’s Dream" with
Beautiful Kids "just because he was out there and so into his little world."
And Nicky in the offbeat puppet musical "Avenue Q" produced by 3B Productions.
The character is a profane version of the beloved Sesame Street character Ernie.
His interest in theater has come full circle. Late in his college career he switched from a major in
acting and directing to theater for youth.
"I just love the idea of doing theater for children," Betancourt said. "It builds all
these social skills and skills you don’t get anywhere else. … It’s important children get access to
it. It’s something that’s necessary but often neglected."
When he joins Creative Learning Ideals for Mind and Body in St. Paul, he’ll be traveling by car through
several Upper Midwest states as part of a team of two actor-educators. They perform classes on issues
such as bullying prevention, accepting differences, empathy and respect as well as teaching classes in
theater.
As he hits the road for CLIMB, Betancourt wants to continue pursuing youth theater and acting. "It’s
just where life takes me and the opportunities I see."

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